


Folie à Deux

by thesignsofserbia



Series: A Study in Nightmares [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A madness shared by two, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, John is Not Okay, M/M, Memories as Weapons, Night Terrors, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, PTSD Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Sherlock Cares, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach, Sherlock is Even Less Okay, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Sherlock-centric, excessive use of metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is so confident and above it all that it can be hard to imagine him being subjected to the problems of normal people. John has to catch himself sometimes, because the lie Sherlock holds around himself is so painstakingly constructed that it's incredibly persuasive.</p><p>Despite what he says though, John knows Sherlock has a heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folie à Deux

**Author's Note:**

> The latest addition to the 'A Study in Nightmares' theme, please excuse the cliche title.

 

 

The door opening quietly is what wakes him up.

  
“J’hn?” he groans, eyes gummed up with sleep.

  
It’s god-knows-what o’clock in the morning, and it also just so happens to be the one night where Sherlock not only needs to sleep, but actually intends to. So whatever John’s got for him better be good, because he’s not getting up for anything less than a vicious and ingenious triple homicide.

  
He only receives an unintelligible noise in response, and just like that; is immediately on high alert.

  
He squints at John’s outline, eyes adjusting to the half-light.

  
“What is it? What’s wrong?”

  
John’s distress is palpable to him even without visual input.

  
Sherlock, as a general rule, considers the concepts of hunches or a ‘sixth sense’ to be ludicrous; romanticised flights of fancy that have no place in the reality of his profession. Leaps of faith are beneath his philosophy of pure reason and do not compute with his logical mind.

  
Right now however, his gut is screaming at him that a crisis is imminent.

  
Sherlock trusts John’s soldier instincts implicitly, his transport feeds off of the other man’s body language, and before he is aware of it on a conscious level he’s tensed and braced for impact. He can’t pinpoint a threat, but if John Watson feels unsafe, then that is good enough for him.

 

Somewhere in his mind, a claxon blares at piercing decibels; a call to arms, because that awful sound that just came out of John’s mouth was undeniably a sob. John Watson does not sob.

 

“S’nothing, I’m fine.”

  
It’s a lie, and not a good one. Granted, John is a dismal liar to start with, and this is _Sherlock_ he’s talking to, he was never going to be convinced by that feeble attempt at deception. But it seems that John at present is not in control of his faculties enough to make it sound even remotely plausible, he didn't even bother to try.

  
John’s utter lack of any poise or control is singularly disturbing. Sherlock determines that they are in no immediate physical danger fairly quickly, but whatever John says, this certainly isn’t _nothing_.

  
“ _John_.”

  
“No, really, it’s…”

  
John trails off like he’s not quite sure where he was going with that sentence, and there’s a heavy pause when it becomes painfully clear that John’s not going to finish, he _can’t_ finish, can’t sustain his defences any longer. John has a seemingly infinite capacity for maintaining appearances and keeping a very British stiff-upper-lip, but he thinks perhaps seemingly is the operative word in this case, as John's walls crumble before his eyes.

  
Sherlock’s retinas have adjusted to the darkness, and he almost wishes they hadn’t.

  
John is crying. This is the first time Sherlock has seen John cry, and it’s fascinating but devastating at the same time.

  
The investigative side of him is intrigued by this new development, the newest facet of John that he's witnessed. He wants to store it in his mind, add it to the plethora of fragments and pieces that make up the ever changing bigger picture; the puzzle, the quintessential character that is uniquely John.

  
That’s what he does, perceives everything, breaks it down and digests it. He notices and comprehends the smallest of details, stores them away in his mind palace until they all can be programmed, categorised and easily referenced.

  
Sherlock opens his mouth but nothing happens. His brain short-circuits.

  
Because he wants to assimilate this new information, inch just that little bit closer to understanding what exactly makes John Watson tick.

  
Once he wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment. But it’s different now. He can’t do it.

  
Because there’s something else that’s stopping him, utterly eclipsing his scientific study and analysis; human compassion.

  
Watching John in this moment is heart-wrenching; it _hurts_ him. And that emotional empathy is taking precedence; it blocks out the cold calculating side of him, blinding him to his usual apathy, so instead of distancing himself to observe, he feels compelled to go to his friend on a baser level.

  
If he thought about it properly, he might be startled by this fundamental negation of personality, but he doesn’t stop to consider it because right now he’s not a chemist, a scientist, or even the world's only consulting detective. He is simply Sherlock Holmes; human being.

  
One thing he _does_ want to determine is how he can offer assistance.

  
The only sounds Sherlock hears are John’s ragged breaths and the blare of the alarm in his head.

  
He allows John some breathing space and attempts to calm himself as well, he needs to adopt an appropriate approach, to take charge and be the responsible adult John needs him to be.

  
He decides to begin by kick-starting John’s rational mind.

  
“Okay then. Let me ask you this; if everything is perfectly alright, then tell me; why are you here?” Sherlock probes reasonably, surprising himself with an uncharacteristic amount of tact. The words are harsh, his delivery is not.

  
“It’s not important,” John mumbles.

  
As the fog of sleep clears from his head, John is becoming aware of himself, and concurrently, of his surroundings.

  
He shifts his weight on the spot, rubbing at the back of his neck self-consciously, and Sherlock can read in the minutiae of his body language that John is disappointed and embarrassed with himself, for faltering in his fastidious military discipline, even if just for a second.

  
John’s barely keeping it together, and it has Sherlock spooked.

  
But there is no room for him to be uncertain, as he understands it, in his newly adopted role of comforter it is imperative that he provide a stabilising force for John to draw from. He must be unflappable, which usually would be a non-issue for him, but nothing is simple when it concerns his regard for John Watson.

  
“Look; I just woke up and thought maybe I’d made it all up in my head. I had to check that you were alive, that you’re back, that this is actually happening and everything hasn’t all been some sick dream. That’s it okay? I’m being stupid.”

  
_Oh John._

  
“I see.”

  
“No,” John disagrees bitterly, “No you don’t. But it’s alright, just forget it, yeah? I don’t know what I was thinking. M’sorry I woke you.”

  
That smarts, but he’s determined not to show it.

  
Sherlock’s hand shoots out and he encircles his fingers around John’s wrist, holding him there, to prevent the only too predictable retreat.

  
“I do. I know.” He insists quietly.

  
People often assume that because Sherlock chooses not to feel, that he is incapable of feeling. _People_ assume that; everyone else, not _John._ How could John, of all people, think him that cold?

  
He doesn’t care what others say, but he doesn’t expect that sort of thing from John. John _knows_ him, he understands Sherlock in a way that no one ever has.

  
Sherlock is a very private man, but feels comfortable in his own skin around John, has done from the very start. John is unique, he can share his home, his imperfections with this man without fear of ridicule, can let him see a different side of him than the one he presents to the world.

  
John can see him at his best, at his worst, in his element, or in a lethargic strop on the sofa wearing 3 day old pyjamas, and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. That is more precious to Sherlock than any treasure or complex mystery in the world.

  
Sherlock’s inner-circle of trust consists of only one man. So although he knows John didn’t intend to hurt him with that statement, it’s hard not to take it personally. Coming from John, the words have weight, the ability to cut deep, because John's opinion matters. John holds a unique sort of power over him, because unlike everyone else, Sherlock actually gives a damn what John thinks.

  
What John doesn't see, is that Sherlock _does_ understand how it feels to wake alone in the middle of the night from a dream and be terrified. Terrified that John will be gone. He knows exactly what it is to fear that none of this is real. Except for him it takes the form of failing to stop Moriarty, imagining that he never made it home, or worse; that he did but John is dead regardless because of some slip or shortcoming of his own.

  
He knows this feeling only too well.

  
His dreams concoct all sorts of scenarios where John is not with him, fears that do not always go away immediately upon waking, despite knowing that is not how it happened. It’s not rational, and that aggravates him. It clearly is bothering John too.

  
Sherlock hadn’t been aware that John was dealing with these demons as well. There's a strange camaraderie in knowing they face their shared neurosis together, this somehow makes the task seem a little bit less daunting. They are united; going into battle as brothers in arms.

  
_Just the two of them against the world._

  
John exhales shakily in an effort to hold himself together, and it’s clear that he wants to believe Sherlock, he really does. But a small part of him cannot be certain that Sherlock isn’t just trying to placate him, to avoid an embarrassing display of sentiment, to get this over and one with.

  
A few years ago, Sherlock might have been doing exactly that, but this isn’t a few years ago, and so much has changed in their lives since his fall from grace.

  
He isn’t the same man, and he’s not sure that John is either.

  
When he fell, they broke in tandem, what they endured after was different, their environments polar opposites, and yet the result was exactly the same. The cracks in their hearts originate from the same vein, and can be traced back to precisely the same fault line, which lies somewhere on the pavement outside St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

  
Their pain is irrevocably linked.

  
In forcing them apart, James Moriarty also unintentionally fused them together. He set Sherlock's heart ablaze only to give him a transplant in the same manoeuver, now John's afflictions are his, and his are John's. John Watson is effectively the embodiment of Sherlock's life support, and it is entirely possible that it goes both ways.

  
John could really use some comfort right now, but he’s hesitant, his pride not allowing him to ask. Admittedly he’s not choosing the best of candidates to help him,  quite frankly _anyone_ else would be better suited to this than his prickly sociopathic flatmate, but unfortunately in this case Sherlock is likely the only person who can make this better.

  
Regardless of how much he is lacking in this area, or whether or not he knows how.

  
There were times during his travels when John’s absence presented as a profound ache, throbbing somewhere unreachable, impossibly deep inside him, deeper than is anatomically feasible, and it hurt as if it were a legitimate wound. On worse days it drove him to distraction, he lost all focus, when the mere possibility of being without John for a moment longer was inconceivable, that he could not bear any more. He still experiences these same sensations from time to time, when he is alone and afraid within the privacy of his own room.

  
John doesn’t need support, he needs _Sherlock’s_ support, there’s something unquantifiable that only he can provide for John right now, and for the first time in his life, Sherlock gets it.

  
John has absolutely nothing to be embarrassed for, but that doesn't change the fact that he still is.

  
They are at a stalemate, neither one of them willing to make the next move, but John needs him, and he would do anything for this man. Sherlock would sit through a nuclear holocaust if it would guarantee his safety, so Sherlock knows he must take that final step.

  
He tugs lightly on John’s wrist and the man slumps onto the edge of the mattress with his head bowed, and while he doesn’t take his arm away, he doesn’t reach out either. He’s afraid Sherlock will reject his need for reassurance and dismiss what he’s feeling as foolish.

  
Instead, Sherlock turns back the duvet in invitation. He sighs, John is visibly torn.

  
“Get in.”

  
Sherlock leaves no room for misinterpretation, he recognises that being gentle is the commonly accepted practise in these situations, but they’ve never been coy with one another, so he lays it out in the open, so John can see exactly where they stand. John needs him and he wants to help, but they’re both tired and it’s too bloody cold for him to linger like this.

  
John is vulnerable and uncertain, but eventually shifts under the covers, careful to keep as much distance between them as possible. His breathing is laboured as he fights to regain his composure.

  
Slowly Sherlock takes John’s hand and places two of his fingers on his own pulse point, so he can feel the life in Sherlock’s body, John’s head snaps around and he stares at him, eyes wide, unsure, before his focus drops slowly to Sherlock’s wrist.

  
He watches as John automatically counts the beats. The last time John had taken his pulse, he hadn’t found one.

  
“I’ve come home,” Sherlock murmurs, voice still deep from having been woken so suddenly.

  
John is struggling now, and though he resists it, he’s beginning to fall apart; shaking and holding Sherlock’s wrist in a death grip. When Sherlock extracts himself John makes a broken little sound that fills him with self-loathing for what he has done to this man.

  
But he simply moves John’s hand to his throat to feel the steady metre composed by his carotid artery. He waits, endeavouring to keep his heart steady for John, and prevent it from declaring the undercurrent of anxiety that is sweeping through him.

  
Some of the tension melts from John’s shoulders, but it is not nearly enough for Sherlock’s liking. So he risks going one step further, lifting his t-shirt, just enough, and places John’s hand on his skin above his sternum, so he can feel that Sherlock’s heart is still beating, physically feel the organ contracting in his chest, and the blood being pumped through his veins.

  
Sherlock feels exposed. It’s an intimate display of trust, he is presenting John with the undeniable proof that he needs. Sherlock is here, he's alive, he’s human. For a man as guarded as him, it is like surrendering a piece of himself and offering it to John. His throat closes up.

  
“C’mere,” he mumbles gruffly.

  
John doesn’t resist this time, just makes another strangled sort of sound as he reaches breaking point and Sherlock vows to do everything in his power to ensure that he never has to hear that sound again as long as he lives.

  
Sherlock gathers him so John is tucked against his side with his head on Sherlock’s chest. John finally lets go, allowing Sherlock to carry some of John's share of their pain. He wraps John in strong arms and holds him through it.

  
It is a strange and unfamiliar experience for him, but he imagines that this feels akin to some sort of spiritual awakening. Sherlock feels guilty that he enjoys being this close to John given the circumstances. He's never held anyone like this before, and no one has ever held _him_ when _he_ collapses under the weight of it all. And he's never wanted them to, but with John...he wonders how it may differ to be on the receiving end.

  
“I missed you,” John gasps into his chest, breath hitching, “I never told you, but I’m so glad you’re alive. It was…h…horrible. _God_ I missed you.”

  
Sherlock’s throat constricts, he swallows thickly, but says nothing.

  
He did this.

  
~

  
John doesn’t know what to think, for some reason it hadn’t really occurred to him that ‘The Great Sherlock Holmes’ could actually _have_ nightmares, and he immediately scolds himself for it, because of course it’s bloody possible that his friend has bad dreams. Being a genius doesn't somehow make him immune.

  
It’s just...sometimes Sherlock is so confident and above it all that it’s hard to imagine him being subjected to the problems of _normal_ people. He's on a different intellectual level than the rest of them. He is extremely disciplined regarding sentiment, he barely eats, and can go days on end without sleeping, so with that massive brain, sometimes it’s hard to see that he’s not infallible, some sort of machine.

The lie Sherlock upholds around himself is painstakingly constructed, it is designed to be easily acceptable to avoid any further scrutiny (“ _Everybody wants to believe it, that's what makes it so clever. A lie that's preferable to the truth”)_ and as a result it can be very persuasive. The act is so good that from time to time John has to catch himself, sometimes he almost falls for it. Almost, but not quite. John sees it for the deception it is.

  
Despite what he says, Sherlock Holmes is only human.

  
John _should_ know this better than anyone, because in living with the man he's gotten to know him. And although he is an absolute bastard about 70% of the time, John knows Sherlock has a heart.

  
Still it’s a bit of a shock to see it up close. For a second there, he thought Sherlock was seizing, screaming hoarsely, eyes open, spine curved, and rigid as if an electric currant was running through his thin frame. Being woken up by Sherlock’s nightmares rather than his own was far more terrifying. The hair on the back of John's neck is standing on end, and he feels like he’s just run the length of the Olympic football pitch, even though all he did was wake up and narrowly avoid being punched in the nose by his incapacitated flatmate.

  
But those sounds…they send icy shards stabbing through his chest, because he remembers where he was the last heard wailing like that, nearly five years ago, and it isn’t somewhere he’d ever want Sherlock to be, or anyone else for that matter. The worst part had been when Sherlock had started crying out for John, brokenly calling his name like it was his last breath, and only John could save him.

  
But it's no ordinary dream. Sherlock is having a night terror, and that is a distinction John wishes he wasn’t able to make. Sherlock likely won’t have any recollection of it when he wakes, but he’s Sherlock so he’ll figure it out in less than three seconds anyway.

  
Night terrors are relatively rare for children and exceptionally so for adults, they last ten minutes to half an hour and it can be very difficult to snap someone out of them, those are the facts. It will probably be more upsetting to John than Sherlock.

  
That’s not what bothers him.

  
The most common causes for it in adults are near death experiences, mental illness, substance abuse, and sudden, violent loss. He’s a god damn military veteran _and_ a doctor, so he has good authority on the matter, plus he experienced the fucking things first hand after Afghanistan. He knows that what Sherlock is going through now is very real to him, and it quite possibly once _literally_ was _._ His best friend is caught in his own personal hell, reliving trauma that actually happened; calling for John's help.

  
John imagines Sherlock god-knows-where going through god-knows-what, and thinks about how he was the one who Sherlock thought of, the one he cried for. He may not have been able to then, but he sure as hell can save him now, and he does, shaking Sherlock roughly until the detective lurches back into the present.

  
Sherlock has no idea that he’s been talking in his sleep, so John doesn’t mention it, but he’ll never forget it, can’t un-hear Sherlock’s voice cracking on his name. He shivers and tries to gauge Sherlock’s emotional state.

  
It’s weird, because Sherlock isn’t fighting with John or concealing anything, but his eyes still look sort of shallow instead of expressive and bright, like there’s not much going on behind them, and that's a sobering thought.

  
John can’t read him.

  
~

  
_Oh for fucks sake, not again._

  
When John wakes him up again just a few hours later, this time from his own dream, the tables have turned dramatically, and he might just have to find out what it is like on the other side of the equation.

  
He is sucking in huge gulps of air, covered in sweat and he’s so worked up he thinks he may vomit, but the logical side of him is still online and functioning, so there’s that.

  
At least he doesn’t accidentally lash out and injure his flatmate in a disoriented panic. He’d regrettably done that a few times to nurses and (not so regrettably) to Mycroft in the hospital, when he was still recovering. That was before he got back officially. He doesn’t remember a great deal from those six weeks, mostly just surgery, pain, and general indignity.

  
His _triumphant_ return; not quite how he’d envisioned it.

  
Sherlock is momentarily confused as to why John is in his bed before he remembers, but apart from that mentally he feels _fine_ , he knows what’s happened of course but doesn’t remember the specifics and doesn’t care to. In fact he’d quite like to go back to sleep, but his brain has come online, his mind is flying at its usual break-neck speed, and his body thinks the sky is falling.

  
It’s either all or nothing with him and sometimes it can be exhausting. He was so sure he’d be able to rest tonight, to get in a few hours sleep, even after John’s spontaneous arrival, but he now needs to deal with this mess.

  
Of course John chooses to join him on a bad night, of course he does. Marvellous.

  
Though the bad nights are becoming significantly more frequent of late.

  
His face is expressionless (he thinks), but it’s different to his usual impervious attitude. Sherlock doesn’t say a word; he just retreats to his mind palace.

  
Sherlock trusts John absolutely, so he turns his attention inwards to lock this down, face these memories that plague him, store them away for good, and solve this problem to ensure it never happens again. He's so tired of this, it's wearing on him heavily, and it has to stop.

  
He cannot allow this to continue, there is no place for fear and uncertainty in his life. How on earth can he be expected to solve _anything_ when he’s practically afraid of his own shadow? What kind of reputable detective flinches at something as minor as a whistling kettle or a dropped glass, and sees ambush around every corner? Every electronic beep is a potential explosive device, every glint of light on the street or the roof tops could be a sniper, every coat could conceal a weapon and every moment could be his last.

  
He can’t turn off his battlefield instincts, nor his heightened startle reflex. Sherlock loves London, he isn’t interested in living anywhere else, nowhere else has the same appeal to him, he belongs here. But recently the everyday noises of the city he once revelled in now initiate his combat stress-response and it can get a bit much at times.

  
Sensory overload is never pleasant.

  
He needs to regain complete control of his mind and he cannot do so in a state like this, so he leaves John to take care of his transport, to fix his erratic breathing and slow his pulse down to a less medically alarming rate. Leaves himself in John's capable hands. He is distantly aware of John’s presence; the low even quality to his voice designed to soothe as Sherlock is wracked with aftershocks of fear, confusion, and the pain of wounds long healed.

  
However…he can’t just wrangle two years of his life into a strait jacket and delete them, as much as he’d like to. It would be naïve to assume it is even possible, because really it’s not. Not when fragments of the information may still be useful or relevant. It would be remiss of him to even mount an attempt, he knows that, but...the appeal still lingers.

  
Sherlock has seen and done a lot of things that he fervently wished he’d not had to during his absence, things that would make Sally Donovan unbearably smug at having been proven right. John would certainly not approve, he may have been able to overcome Sherlock’s betrayal and deceit, to absolve him of that particular transgression, but this is worse. If he learnt of the utter _savagery_ involved in some of Sherlock’s more recent _accomplishments_ then it is highly likely they would be deemed inexcusable in John's eyes. Sherlock wouldn’t blame him.

 

That didn’t mean Sherlock was torn up about what he’d done,. He had no regrets, he’d do it again a thousand times. Those men had deserved their fates...for the most part. Besides; they’d done no less to him in return. To say that they hadn’t been very nice men would have been a gross understatement.

  
John would be dead if he had failed; Lestrade and Mrs Hudson too, and he’d been prepared to do almost anything to stop that from happening.

  
Granted, a significant number of men and women had died by his hand, (often messily, slowly if necessary) and it had affected him more than he’d expected at first, but fairly quickly he had acclimatised. It almost felt like an art form at times, though that was a dangerous train of thought to follow. He eventually conformed himself into the role of professional mercenary and wore it like a bespoke suit.

  
They had been right, all along. Sherlock Holmes made an excellent criminal. Espionage, hand-to-hand combat and assassinations became his natural milieu.

  
Undeniably there was a part of him that found the prospect of revenge _very_ appealing.

  
He still habitually removes fingerprints from objects he’s touched, John doesn’t quite understand the significance of why he’s doing it or even what he _is_ doing exactly, but he notices and is infuriated by it anyway.

  
He set himself no restrictions on how far he was willing to go, with limits come weaknesses, weaknesses that his enemy did not share and could thus use to their advantage. He had no concern for his own fate, he had been supposed to die. Mycroft hadn’t known what to do with him when he emerged (or rather was dragged) from the wreckage, bloodied, battered, and barely breathing, but technically alive.

  
Successful but defeated nonetheless.

  
Sherlock walked a fine line for two years, making frequent excursions across it, wading into dubious waters, each time coming out not quite as clean as before, as if he had been dipped in black paint. After each job less of it would scrub off.

  
More than once he’d almost slipped over the edge entirely in his precarious balancing act, he was constantly on the verge of an inky baptism.

  
He never enjoyed this occupation, but he did become numb to whatever was left of his already limited conscience, the remnants muted and screaming in the back of his head, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like that of John Watson.

  
It was amazing what a human being is capable of, what they can overcome and withstand to protect the ones they hold most dear. Who knew that with the right motivation, under enough pressure it was possible to exsanguinate a man thrice your mass with only a hairpin.

  
He considers Moriarty’s people as simply casualties of war.

  
That being said…he does not want to be reminded of that chapter in his life.

  
The truth is that it is the things that _they_ had done that had ultimately made the deepest impressions, rather than the other way around. He had been willing to do what he had to, but he had not been able to predict what Moriarty’s legacy had in store for him. Naturally they had been prepared to go almost as far as their dear departed boss, and if he’s honest with himself, he can admit that he’d had no idea the extent of what he’d been going up against.

  
Sherlock Holmes was used to being the predator, not the prey, and he had been thrown to the wolves, so to speak. Life turned on him violently, and he’d been thrust into a world where nowhere was safe and no one could be trusted; he had no safety net, nothing he could rely on.

  
Completely alone, he was forced to be furtive, to fly under the radar, facing a seemingly insurmountable task. He fought everyday just to survive, often literally. It was adapt or die, kill or be killed.

  
So Sherlock had; in a blood stained, sinister sort of metamorphosis. He had excelled, acquiring and utilising every tool of the trade; an expert in fatality. He’d grown stronger, more clinical than ever before, his senses heightened, he became elusive, concentrated, precise, and _angry_ ; a one man weapon of mass destruction.

  
He'd always had this potential inside him, but he refuses to embrace it completely, not even in the midst of it all. He will not become James Moriarty.

  
His experiences have imprinted themselves upon him in two ways, there is the physical evidence of what he had endured, and there is another consequence; the shadows lurking in his eyes, just below the surface, something ominous.

  
He feels tainted, contaminated, like the last two years have marked him somehow, and he’s paranoid that it’s visible to the naked eye. He’s older, in more ways that one, he has lost something important, something he can never reclaim, and it shows sometimes, he’s sure. It must.

  
He thinks John sees it, occasionally, in glimpses, and he wonders what it is exactly that John reads there, because his face always becomes strained, lips pressed together into a thin line, and in these moments he looks older too. It’s been a great deal more than two years for both of them; surely Sherlock has been gone decades, centuries have slipped by, millennia have past, because that’s what it feels like.

  
Does he look haunted? He should do.

  
He wants to forget. He wants to relinquish these thoughts, that whole godforsaken ordeal entirely, to brush it off and let it float away into oblivion, where it cannot loiter behind his eyes, whispering secrets to those who dare to look just that little bit closer. He wants to exile it somewhere it can’t hurt anyone with the harrowing truth.

  
No one else needs to know what he’s done, what he’s seen; his scarlet achievements. What good could it possibly bring?

  
Nothing is that simple, the undesirable moments of his past and painful memories are not loose threads to be plucked away. Each individual strand is intricately woven and tightly interlaced with others, impossible to untangle and separate from the convoluted mess that is his mind, many of them far too significant to delete, just parts of a whole, but integral to cohesion.

  
His screaming, the bitter cold, his nerve fibres shredded, his skin peeled off, splintering bone, losing his mind in increments...there is no scalpel fine enough to cut these things out seamlessly, he wants them out of his head, wants to purge them, force them to disappear.

  
He will never in his life be able to shake the image of rows of objects, in consecutive order, blunt, chemical, shiny, razor-edged, caustic, primitive, ingenious; effective.

  
Instruments of hatred on a rudimentary table.

  
In visual memory some individual sights stand out more than most, in highlighted snapshots, and this particular one is in high definition.

  
He remembers it perfectly, right down to the grain of the pine table, the dust in the air, the piercing cold, dried blood itching and cracking on his skin, individual grains of sand grating under his knees, the hunger, the burn of the rag forced down his throat, soaked in ammonia, corroding his respiratory tracts.

  
The items on the table are the focal point; that table is featured in practically every dream he can recall having since he was first introduced to them. They had become very well acquainted. fulfilling their purpose, each one inventive in it's application, marring him, in more ways than he can count.

  
He could describe each of the 31 objects exercised in the cycle in excruciating detail, and their strictly adhered to schedule of implementation (a novel method psychological torment on its own; the apprehension and dread that come from knowing and having already experienced exactly what horror you will be forced to endure next).

  
But he won’t describe them, not to himself and not to anyone, because he shouldn’t be _able_ to remember them so vividly, he doesn't want to, they have no legitimate claim to the space they inhabit on his hard-drive, and he tries to burn them off in manageable segments that won’t be missed, but they are impervious to the flames, untouchable.

  
The black tendrils of memory hide in the folds and crevices of the ruins, all that remains of his once brilliant mind. These things are malignant. If he does nothing, he knows they could eventually kill him, but there is nothing to be done, for they cannot be removed.

  
Some memories that are big events or have a large amount of influence over other parts of his life would be made to stand out even more in their absence, other aspects of his mind would fail to make sense at all without them, inbuilt plot holes.

  
He notices everything, he would notice the continuity errors, traces would be left, edges warped around the patch like in a badly edited photograph, and he would spot the clues and know something was missing.

  
It would be essentially censoring his own mind.

  
That would be unbearable, the curiosity would be too much, the narrative incomplete, the flaws in his databank an endless source of frustration, he’d drive himself insane trying to figure out what it was, to trace the lie to the source. He would search for that information tirelessly, as was his nature.

  
If, in the unlikely case that the data _was_ recoverable, he would always conclude that he’d have preferred to have let it lie, but that was impossible for him, not knowing the answer.

  
If he was unable to salvage it, the truth would never be revealed to him and he knew he would find it very difficult to cope with that, knew from personal experience that this strategy was inadvisable.

  
It is also horrendously impractical, as it left gaping spaces in his palace, a missing stair here, a door with no hinges or handle, a whole section of a corridor missing, leaving a great black chasm in its place. It would be a façade inside his own head, a virus infecting his hard-drive.

  
Anyone might make a passing reference to something that had happened, something he’d done or said or been part of; an unimportant aspect of his life that he’d completely erased that had taken something important with it by mistake, and he would have no recollection of that, no idea what they were talking about.

  
Worst of all he’d lose hard earned knowledge and experience. Data: the thing he values above all else. That eventuality could never be worth it, he didn’t care what he could potentially gain, because he’d never be able to live with himself. Why bother to go to such lengths to protect himself when the cost is to lose a part of what makes him who he is in the first place? It would cowardly; playing it safe, settling for less.

  
It would be giving in. He would not be coddled, especially not by his own _mind_. He may lose himself regardless, be consumed by it all anyway, but at least it will be on his terms.

  
Sherlock had concluded long ago that purging an entire incidence was not an option. No matter how awful the memory, and how much he is desperate to be rid of it. Ignorance is certainly not bliss, not for him, even if he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to remember.

  
He tries to coral the aspects of his time away that pursue him, if he can just confine and secure them, he may be at peace, just for a while. His life could be again just made up of murder (ones he did not perpetrate), tea, and John.

  
He wants it to be as it once was; simpler but not boring, a time that has become a distant memory, warm and safe, revisited often; a sanctuary. A fire glowing in the hearth at 221B. But he hardly remembers what it was like in practice anymore, rather than as a fantasy, what parts happened, and which aspects did he make up and romanticise in his head?

  
That fire is fading and dying. Perhaps it can be rekindled.

  
Sherlock thinks it must be nice; living without the constant feeling that one’s life is in mortal peril, being able to hear yourself think over the screaming of ghosts, and the undead, if that’s what he is. He can’t really remember what it is to be stationary, to be content. He never particularly liked to be stationary before, but he thinks that now it would be tolerable, for a short while, a welcome change. Better than this anyway.

  
The memories. He can’t catch them. They won’t be contained.

  
The fires in the palace have all petered out into the grates, leaving him cold and wary, inching his way through the halls like an intruder, like he’s being watched. Hunted.

  
Everything begins to take on a greyer quality and he has the irrational thought that he’s no longer welcome. His mind palace is turning against him as the poisonous memories mutiny, this shouldn’t be possible. How is this possible?!

 _  
_ He’s coming to suspect that he’s not going to succeed, and perhaps he should simply cut his losses and retreat. But he feels heavy, and it’s taking more effort than it should to withdraw, he feels like he’s looking up out of his mind towards the real world from an oubliette, catching just the barest glimpse of the sky.

  
The memories congregate above him and descend upon him. They swirl around him through the air, great ribbons of dense black cloud spiralling sickeningly, getting closer and closer, dancing, rolling, and slithering over one another like a living entity, a grotesque shoal, until he is in the eye of a nightmare tornado. It’s constricting upon him, and the air is poisonous and too thick to breathe.

  
He can see the table.

  
_The rusty shears, the crow bar, the vice, the cattle prod, the fishing hooks, the butane torch, the dirty syringe, the guitar string, _the whip__ _, the rubber mallet, the ammonia, the ice water, the trench knife, the drill bit, _the fucking_ _orbitoclast_ …_

  
This feels like a bad dream, but he’s not asleep. He’s lost control, he can’t get out; trapped in a living nightmare, one he might not be able to escape.

 _  
What is this?_ _What is happening to his mind?!_

  
Everything warps, and he feels his inertia compress and restrain him. Sherlock's eyes burn, suddenly blinded as the lights flicker out, and he is thrust into pitch blackness. Losing his sight had been his biggest fear as a boy, being unaware of the world around him, plunged into eternal nothingness. He suddenly feels very small and helpless, as though he were that child once more, huddled in the dark. He gropes tentatively in front of him for something to hold onto, someone to help him.

  
He’s not sure if he’s floating or drowning, but his feet are nailed to the floor. None of this makes any sense. Which way is up? _Is there an up?_ The laws of physics cease to apply, and all he can hear is his own cries of agony as each painful memory rushes at him quick fire, he can’t see any of it now, sightless and destitute, irises saturated in black, but he can hear every second of his own torture, echoing around him from all directions.

  
The palace is being flooded inch by inch, tiles become treacherous, the plush carpets squishing under his feet, then it is lapping at his ankles, the levels rising increasingly faster, soon he will be completely submerged in murky, arctic waters.

  
The thing about nightmares is, they have an unlimited potential to affect you, they can make you as frightened as it is possible for you to be, because it’s all orchestrated by your own brain, they control proteins, hormones and memory. Your brain holds all of the cards and infinite power, and his brain has been corrupted. It’s the psychological equivalent of nerve pain. Your subconscious can torment you more severely than any sadistic Serbian thug.

  
He never should have sought them out, they’re going to suffocate and dismantle him, their poison seeping through his pores and into his bloodstream.

  
He's on his knees and the water creeps to his chest.

  
Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut tightly, clamps his hands over his ears and curls in on himself.

  
He feels it again; _dried blood itching and cracking on his skin, individual grains of sand grating under his knees…_

  
Unexpectedly, the assault ceases.

  
He raises his head, and the walls of his mind blur back into focus and he gasps in disbelief at his stay of execution.

  
The fire begins to glow again from the hearth, the flame kindling and igniting, rising from the dead with powerful warmth that radiates through the halls, getting brighter with every second, until they are illuminated, painted with golden light.

  
It’s John’s light.

  
He concentrates; it seems that John has curled himself around Sherlock protectively on the bed, sharing his body heat, his support, and his belief, until somehow, impossibly, _miraculously,_ it permeates the barriers of mind and reality, to reach Sherlock where he is far away, treading water in the depths of his mind. John Watson believes in Sherlock Holmes.

  
And that is his lifeline, John keeps him afloat, the only thing preventing him from going under.

  
But he water is receding now, draining away, until he's left standing in flimsy pyjamas; soaking wet but no longer raw with cold, on the landing of the main staircase.

  
The warmth has the effect of dispersing and subduing the threads of smoke until they no longer eclipse the air as menacing serpents. John shrinks them until they are manageable for him to painstakingly wrestle each one back down into the basement, to store them separately where, when he chooses, he can remember them individually at his leisure without being overcome by the pack.

  
~

  
Sherlock opens his eyes after what feels to be an eternity, to be greeted with by the dawn’s light, the sound of early morning traffic and soft snoring. If possible he feels more wrung out than he had before. Because he hasn’t been sleeping; he’s been slaying dragons.

  
John apparently stayed with him the whole night, forehead pressed to the back of Sherlock’s neck and he wonders how much John knows, how much he unintentionally revealed. John is practically running a fever, how can he be that warm? It’s the middle of winter but Sherlock’s almost over-heating from the combination of both of them under his duvet, like he’s sitting just a tiny bit too close to an open flame.

  
He should get up, before John wakes, that way he can ensure they save face, he can't have that conversation just yet. He’s not accomplishing anything by dawdling either, Lestrade might have a case for him, plus he’s been meaning to start that tongue experiment for weeks, there are a million things that he could be occupying himself with.

  
But he’s reluctant to move.

  
_Just two more minutes, that’s all he needs. It’s cold, that is a perfectly valid reason to want to linger, just for a bit, in his warm bed before facing the day._

_  
To stay here, with John._

  
It has been a very long time since Sherlock has had a bed mate, and it’s not how he remembers it. He doesn’t feel the urge to get rid of them as soon as possible, shower extensively, and then get on with his life.

  
He is not sure how he feels.

  
John’s hand twitches on his hip bone, it catches him off guard and he feels his ribcage contract. Sherlock has to take a moment, blinking rapidly with an unexpected and unidentified rush of emotion, his eyes burning. What has he done to deserve this man? John’s blissfully ignorant of Sherlock’s moment of weakness, he didn’t even need to do anything, his mere presence was enough.

  
John has saved him, for the hundredth time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Spot the hidden x-files reference.


End file.
